


honi soit qui mal y pense

by betony



Category: 14th Century CE RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, F/M, Pre-Relationship, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:28:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28305342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betony/pseuds/betony
Summary: When she is twelve, Joan of Kent works magic for the first time. When she is eighteen, she knows better.
Relationships: Edward the Black Prince/Joan of Kent
Comments: 5
Kudos: 27
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	honi soit qui mal y pense

**Author's Note:**

  * For [categranger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/categranger/gifts).



> Warning for brief mentions of canonical child marriage and a (canonical) implied future relationship between first cousins once removed. Title (which translates to "Shame on him who thinks evil of it") after the motto of the Order of the Garter, rumored to be created in Joan of Kent's honor.

When she is twelve, Joan reaches into her chest and extracts her living heart. She holds it, scarlet and shivering, in her hand; and then, when her cousin Ned clambers to hold it, she relents. It will give her time, at least, to wipe her fingers clean.

Ned takes it as one might the holy host, as though he expects it to be snatched away at any instant. When she does not, he looks up at her, eyes wide. "It's lighter than I thought," he tells her. "Like a bird."

Pretty, foolish words; but then again, Ned is only a boy, no less than three years younger, and mustn't be expected to do any better. Joan, on the other hand, is a bedded bride, despite Thomas's insistence on discretion, and this allows her to address the situation with amused tolerance. As a great lady might, even the Queen. She smiles and says, "Tell me, my prince: would you see me heavy-hearted instead?"

"I would never see you unhappy at all." Ned's eyes focus on her, unnervingly solemn, and despite herself, Joan shudders. She has the sudden impression of standing at a precipice, about to tumble into something for which she is quite unprepared, and nonetheless-

He is only a boy, she reminds herself, and you a woman grown.

"Anyway you've had it long enough," Joan says abruptly, and snatches back her heart. "I only meant to show you what I could do. Are you not astonished, or must I pull stuffed pigeons from your ears next?"

"I am," says Ned, readily enough. "Only--Don't tell Father. Don't tell anyone."

Joan pulls back. "And why not?" Oughtn't the King admire her talents? Oughtn't he take pride in the fact that his uncle's daughter worked such wonders? Joan knows, very

well, that her father died an attainted traitor for failing to make himself useful to the Crown. She will not make the same mistake. Magic-workers were not unknown in England, but rare enough to meet with celebration. Certainly France, across the waters, could not be expected to hoard all marvels to itself.

"I know you might not understand," Ned says, and his forehead wrinkles. "I don't, myself. But you mustn't tell."

He is a child, Joan tells herself. He is a child, and he wants to hold the secret to himself in the greedy manner of any child. Very likely it makes him feel important, a prince in truth rather than only in name. How Thomas will laugh when she shares this observation with him! But for now, Ned must be managed.

"Of course I won't," Joan soothes, and slips her heart back into place. And how odd; perhaps it is nothing more than the sensation of examining and replacing it, or of having another's hands hold it firm, but her heart doesn't quite seem to settle exactly in the way it's meant to. It gives any number of anxious skips, when it never did before, and when Ned repeats his warning for silence, just as Thomas had weeks ago, Joan wants very much to listen, if only every sinew of sense in her body didn't refuse. Tomorrow, then; tomorrow, she will perform at a revel, and all the Court will know what she is and what she might do. That will settle the question at last. That must content her.

(She realizes her mistake only when the Montagus, in all their greed, petition the King to take charge of her.)

* * *

It is six years before Ned speaks to her again of what he saw her do that afternoon in the Queen's gardens. Many others have: some gently, and others--like her so-called family, forced upon her and determined to harness her gifts to his own ends--less so. William Montagu might have married her, but keeps her at arm's length, warding his bed with tokens; and his sour-faced mother incessantly warns of how Joan will hang, should her in-laws die an unnatural death.   
They might consider that, should Joan have the grit to win her freedom by such means, they would not see the next sunrise, no matter how they contrived and prayed. It is only that she is soft, she thinks with some disgust: soft enough to want to heal instead of hurt. Soft enough to believe the King might yet see justice done.  
She is at least not soft enough to balk at spiting William in any way she can, and most often by going among the common folk and using her gifts to cure the ailing. He knows, as does she, that every working is a refusal to comply with his orders to make his men stronger, faster, viler--but alas, what can he say when she only fulfills her duties as lady of the manor? And if it means the peasants love her, and might someday take up her cause against another's, so much the better.

This is where Ned finds her: she is with a pock-marked young maiden, weeping over her lost looks. With the assurance of the beautiful, Joan can't entirely understand what all the fuss is about; but she does consent to move the young woman's eyes a hair further apart, to present a comelier appearance. It is nothing compared to the lengths Joan had gone to save her life, and she finishes in time to see Ned at the door, startling in his armor.

He has grown, she thinks with approval, and his hair elegantly styled, but his gaze is as unnatural as ever. Even her talents would be hard-pressed to do bring beauty to that harsh, gaunt face--and still she can't deny the rush of affection and pleasure at the sight of him. She has missed him, her little Ned.

He offers, of course, to carry her little basket, and she lets him, the better to study his face. All the world knows of the King's intention of knighting his son during the impending French campaign; had Ned come only to bring that information to her? Or merely remind her of who, in the end, had proven more useful to the crown after all.

If so, she finds she'd prefer silence.

But he breaks it, voice surprisingly deep. "You know I must go."

Joan does. Her life, it sometimes seems, is a never-ending chain of those she loves departing for France, where all she might send them are her fervent prayers. They would need them, in a kingdom so marked by wild magic and rogue enchantments: she had heard the stories of good English soldiers driven mad by what they saw.

But: "You will do very well," Joan lies brightly. "I am certain of it. The crowds will cheer your victory on your return, and the ladies all forsake their old lovers and throw their virtue at your toes. What more might you want?"

He doesn't laugh, as she meant him to. Instead he muses, "Victory I might return with, but also more: blood, sin, darkness." 

Well, and what did he suppose war was? Joan, as a well-born maiden, might been raised in innocence of it, but certainly not in ignorance. She can hardly believe Ned could claim otherwise. 

"I want you to do something for me." Ned turns to face her, takes her hands in his, and drops to his knees before her. Joan's heart, still so unpredictably anxious, begins to race again. "I won't survive what is come in France with my soul intact, Jeanette. Take it from me, I beg you."

Joan laughs. She does not mean to, but what a demand! "That is for the Lord to work," she reminds him piously. "Perhaps you might try a bishop's abode instead."

"My soul has always been yours. The Lord can call and snap His fingers all he likes; it will come only to you." And before Joan protest, he continues, all in a rush, "And I've seen it, Jeanette: the slaughtered bodies, the sobbing women, the smoke and fire and stench of hell. All the work of my hands."

"The future--"

"Is my gift to know." Ned shakes his head, impatient. "You are not the only one who possesses a grandmother who derives from the cursed line of France. I will be victorious, and I will make my name, but you must do this one thing for me."

He speaks with such assurance that before she knows it, Joan finds herself reaching into his chest. What comes out, however, is not the heart she expects to see, but a curious spherical object, no larger than her fingernail, that shines like white fire. It ought to burn, she thinks dizzily; it does not. 

"Wear it about your neck," Ned says, rising once more. "I would see it safe."

Joan nods, and, task accomplished, he turns to go. She imagines he has already delayed long enough, insisting on this one last stop before he ventures towards the coast.

She might bid him return soon to collect what he has left in her keeping; or to take a message bewailing her plight to Thomas. She does not.

Instead, in the very last moment before she reckons him out of earshot, she calls out. "And what else, my prince, might you know of what shall be?"

Unexpectedly he faces her; even more surprisingly, he smiles. Joan's cheeks burn. "All in good time, my love," he says--love? Or was it only that her ears had grown dull and unreliable? It must be that, surely, for no prince pined over the unhappy wife of another. She ought to know better than to indulge in fantasy; she might as well pretend William might ever release her. And for now, at least, there were villages of the needy to be helped. Joan might content herself with that. 

Between her fingers, Ned's soul burned. 

**Author's Note:**

> With many thanks to categranger, whose voluminous Joan of Kent/Edward the Black Prince thoughts made me long to write something about them--as well as explore the (apparently) lifelong connection between them, even when Joan was married to another, as well as Edward's uncanny devotion. Apologies for any minor historical errors; and I hope very much that you enjoy this, categranger!


End file.
